This is the Craig Groeschel Leadership Podcast. Hey, welcome to the Craig Groeschel Leadership Podcast, where we are incredibly passionate about building strong leaders. In fact we drop a new teaching on the first Thursday of every month. If you're new with us, I'd love to invite you to hit the subscribe button. Hit it now so you can get the content delivered to you each time. You'll also want the show notes so you can go look at discussion questions, detailed notes and links and such. You can go to life.church/leadershippodcast, and just sign up for the show notes. We'll send those to you every time we drop an episode. Today we have a very powerful interview. I'm interviewing a good friend of mine, Patrick Lencioni, who is a New York Times Best Selling Author. He's sold more than six million books. I think I've read all of them. "The Advantage" is probably my favorite. He's written "Five Dysfunctions of a Team," probably 12 or 13 books in total. Patrick is a pioneer in organizational health for companies around the world. He founded The Table Group, a consulting organization for businesses and non-profits. His personal impact on me as a leader is unparalleled. We've spoken together at leadership conferences around the world. Most recently we spoke together at the global leadership summit, an event that I'm honored to serve and be a part of every year, building leaders around the world. He's got a great podcast called At the Table. His newest book is a book you're gonna wanna get and read, it's called "The Motive Why So May Leaders Abdicate their Most Important Responsibility." Today I'm honored to have Patrick Lencioni. Patrick, it's amazing to have you on, I've been looking forward to talking to you since the moment it was scheduled. Very good. I can't believe how little we get to see each other, and how much, if you lived down the street I'd probably annoy the crap out of your wife. So God spreads us out so that we don't overuse one another. But I wish I had more time to spend with you, Craig. Hey, you would never annoy my wife, we're all super big fans. We debate which one of your books is our favorite. It's an ongoing argument because it's almost impossible to narrow it in. Of all of them, I think I have to go with "The Advantage" as being my favorite because it kind of incorporates so much of so many of the other books, but that's my favorite. I gotta tell you something that happened last night. So I got back from a client, I was late, and my wife and I were sitting, she's getting involved in the company, my kids are getting a little bit older, and we're talking about it and she's like what do you think I should be focusing on learning? And then she said to me I haven't read "The Advantage" yet. (laughing) And I laughed. I think Amy hasn't read half my books either, so it's kind of money down the drain. Right, exactly, that's how it goes. Well hey, I wanna dive in with you. I know our leadership community just can't wait to hear from you, you're one of the best of the best of the best. You have a new book out called "The Motive Why So Many Leaders Abdicate Their Most Important Responsibilty." And I can just feel people listening, leaning in right now, why leaders abdicate their most important responsibility, are you able to tell us what is your most important responsibility so many leaders are abdicating? Well you know what the book is about is those things that are really hard that leaders decide I don't wanna do those. And there's actually five that we list here, which are not the five things a leader has to do, there's more than that. But there's five things that leaders tend to go I don't wanna do that, that sounds uncomfortable, which is ridiculous 'cause a leader has to be willing to do the most uncomfortable thing. If the leader won't do them nobody else will. No they include things like having uncomfortable conversations. And I've seen so many CEOs, leaders of all kinds avoid the difficult conversation that everybody is saying well if you're not gonna tell them why do you think anybody else is? And they're like I don't wanna tell them. Another one is running awesome meetings. Leaders go I don't, I hate my meetings. And it's like yeah that's your job to make them really good. Another one is managing your direct reports. Many leaders are like I don't wanna do that anymore, that's tedious. It's like yeah, but if you don't manage your direct reports nobody else is. One is really building a team, doing team building, not in some esoteric sense. And the last one is repeating yourself constantly. You need to be the chief reminding officer, and many leaders are like I don't want to, that's boring. So these are the things that a lot of leaders abdicate or delegate, and they can't. You know this may seem like an obvious question, but I'm wondering, 'cause intuitively I know these things are important and yet I feel a little bit convicted listening to you 'cause I don't always do them. Why is it do you think that many leaders don't actually implement and activate on these five things? What it comes down to is, and this happens to me as well, and I wrote this book, is that we lose sight of why we became a lead in the first place. It's not a black and white thing. But really there's two reasons why people become leaders. It's either because it's a reward, I've always wanted to be a leader because it's an awesome job. I have authority and influence. And people know who I am, and that's very normal where original sin is a real thing. We all have a tendency to take care of ourselves. The other reason to become a leader is because it's a responsibility. It's a, we are burdened for others. And the truth of the matter is even the best of us slip. And so we come to work and we go man, you know I've worked my whole life really hard, I do a lot for this organization, I just wanna focus on the things that are fun for me. And so somebody says hey, you know so and so, you need to have a talk, and they're like yeah, I don't really wanna do that. It's normal for a human being to overlook those things. It's like a parent who says I love my kids but I'm pretty tired and I know I need to confront somebody, I don't think I wanna do that right now, that's not really enjoyable. Well if we became a parent because we wanted to enjoy it, we are not gonna do the things that we need to do. And if we become a leader because we just want to enjoy it, we're not gonna do the things we need to do. That doesn't mean it's not enjoyable, but the first thing is we have to do what's required of us, and that's very often a burden. And if we don't embrace those things, nobody else will. That's a good way to say it. Does that make sense? Yeah if we don't embrace it nobody else will. In fact I wanna highlight what you said, Patrick, you said there's the, in your book you write about being responsibility centered, where you truly wanna serve people in the mission and then there's those leaders that are reward centered, they see leadership as a personal reward. I wanna process this out loud with you. I kind of have a theory, and see if you would agree, don't you think that most leaders become a leader because they care? They're mission minded, they wanna make a difference, and then over time it seems like because maybe we gave a lot, we made some sacrifices, the trajectory tends to drift towards being reward centered. And you can loose, I think most people start with the missional mindset, but then they can drift toward being more personally selfish over time, would you agree or disagree? And unpack that. I think I agree and disagree. I think it depends on who you're talking about and where you live. I mean I'm here pretty close to the Silicone Valley and I don't think most people become leaders because they care. I think that there's a desire to be rich and famous and cool. And I think that if you talk to most leaders, and this is how I came up with this book. I would be giving people advice about leadership and they go "I'm not gonna do that. "What do you mean? "That's not fun at all. "There's nothing cool about that." So I think that really young people and people in certain environments actually are more likely to want to be a leader because of what it does for them, which is why when I go to a college graduation and people go you're the future of the world, go out and become the leader, I wanna go no, don't be a leader until you know why you wanna be a leader, 'cause if you're doing it for the wrong reasons, you're gonna cause a lot of misery. Now, in other parts of the world, and you live in a place where there's probably a little bit more institutional humility. Both because you're in a church a lot and because you're in a part of the world where I think people are a little less ego-centered. I believe that. But I think by the time a person gets a little older and they start a business, it may be very well that they wanna do it for the right reason, yes. So I agree with you on that, but there's a crap load of people in the world, Craig, that see leadership as a perk, and it's all about them. And so I don't wanna under estimate that because I think if we do then we're not gonna discourage enough people from becoming leaders. now, but you're right, after a while we get tired and we get complacent. And I started my company 22 years ago, and I would say about 12 years ago I started coming to work looking for fun. And it was easy for me to lose sight of the fact that it was supposed to be a burden. So I think I agree with you. I also disagree with you. I think young people today are more and more drawn to what they can get out of leadership rather than what they can give. And I think servant leadership is rarer than we know, and frankly I think there's only one, I think servant leadership is the only kind of leadership there is. I'm hoping that one day nobody will use that term because they'll realize that's the only kind. Mm-hmm, all right well I appreciate you pushing back, and I do think you're right where you live, who you're around might matter because it does seem, at least in what I do, that there are a lot of people that start off with good motives, and then over time the trajectory, in my leadership it feels like it moves towards self, and you have to you have to work against the natural trajectory toward what feels good to me, and the more influence you have the more drifts towards you. It's tempting. And if you're not working against it you're losing, I think, is what I feel. Yeah, and you're a pastor. And let me tell you, pastors, I do a lot of work in the church, and pastors are very susceptible to this, 'cause nobody goes into that. There's, actually there's some that probably do. They say I'm gonna be on TV one day. But most pastors go into it to serve, and then they, as they experience success, I mean from a theological standpoint the devil comes after them. And it's very tempting to kind of, so being humble in a position like that is such a work and an act of faith. But that's true if you're a CEO too. And if you're successful you start to enjoy that success, and you start to believe people when they tell you good things all the time. And so I think that there's a natural drift if you're just floating down the stream, it's floating toward reward-centered leadership and you have to swim against the current, as you say. You do. I heard someone years ago say something, and I was in a conference and the teacher was talking about increasing your pain tolerance, and the more you influence the more you're gonna hurt. Yes. And the phrase that kind of I came up with that I like to use is the difference between where you are and where you could be may be the pain that you're unwilling to endure. Absolutely. And I'd like to maybe have you talk a little bit about that. One of the things you said that leaders avoid is having difficult conversations. What would you say to a leader right now that maybe has a troubled employee, maybe the culture's drifted and there is a difficult conversation, what would you do to motivate that leader to get off center and to actually engage and do something about the problem? Well what I would do is I would challenge them. And I had to learn the hard way too with some honesty about myself. I would say you are not avoiding that conversation because you care about that person. That's the lie we tell ourselves, and with good intentions. We're like I don't want the to feel bad. Actually when you're not telling that person the hard truth in love, you are serving yourself. It's a selfish act because if you love someone and you're depriving them of truth that they need to either grow, even if that growth means to go someplace else and work or live, if you're depriving them of that, that's an act of pure selfishness, there's no virtue in that. And when I realized I was being selfish by not holding people accountable, that's what made me do it. And I learned that by looking at it as a parent. I thought why would I deprive my sons, I have four boys, why would I deprive them of the truth about what they need to get better? If I love them as a parent, I'm gonna tell them, and I do, so if I don't do that to people that I work with, how can I pretend to love them? And I do use the L word, whether you work at a church or a corporation or a bank, if you, you should love the people that work for you, even if you don't always like them. And to love them means you're gonna tell them the truth even if you suffer for that. Even, in fact, and you will. Maybe for a day, maybe for a couple hours, maybe for a few weeks, heck the person might be mad at you for a year for telling them the truth. You have to be willing to love them enough to suffer for them. I'm gonna recommend that our listeners go back and rewind for three minutes and listen to what you just said over and over and over again because I think this is incredibly helpful. And it's a game changer on your perspective is that we do tend to think hey, I'm protecting this person, and the truth is you're actually harming that person. And you're being selfish, you're not being helpful to them at all whatsoever. The other thing that I've learned over time because I've avoided some difficult conversations, is I didn't realize how much credibility I'm losing with the rest of my team because the problem is really obvious. And over time if I don't deal with the problem then eventually I have to realize that's not the biggest problem, the biggest problem is my hesitancy to deal with the problems. That's a great way to say it. And here's he thing, those other people in the organization, when they see you doing that, they know you're doing it for yourself, not for that person. For us, we can kind of actually convince ourselves no, I really don't want her to feel bad or him to feel bad, but they're like dude, you're not doing this 'cause you want to avoid the pain. And that's a great, and we all do it. I've avoided difficult conversations before, and I've suffered as a result of that, and I've caused that person to suffer longer than they should have. Right. Talk to me about meetings. Was the name of your book "Death by Meetings?" or did I make that up? Yeah, no, "Death by Meaning," that was one of my books. Yeah, it's been so long since I read it, but it was so helpful to me. And I think as leaders it's really easy to go into a meeting just on auto pilot. I do it all the time. How dangerous is that? What do we need to do? How do we need to think about meetings? Give us the few minute Patrick Lencioni crash lesson. So I was with an executive team yesterday, a $7 billion company, who they hate meetings and their meetings are bad, and so they just lament them. And I had to challenge them and say "your meetings are bad because you allow them to be bad, "and it's your job to make them good." And too often we think of meetings as corporate penance, it's like something we need to get through. And when I say to people is listen, if you're the leader of an organization, if you're a pastor, if you're a priest that's one thing, I'm a Catholic, but if you're a pastor that means you're a leader. And if you don't like meetings then you don't like your job. If you're the CEO of an organization, and I've had CEOs say "hey, if I didn't have to go to "meetings and manage people I'd really like my job." And I'm like that would be like a football player saying if I didn't have to go to games and practices I'd love this gig. Or a surgeon saying if I didn't have to operate on people and see patients this would be a great job. The truth of the matter is when we say we don't like meetings we are essentially admitting, unbeknownst to ourselves, that we don't like our work because a meeting is just sitting down around a table with a group of other leaders and solving problems. And so the first thing we have to do is change our attitude, and then we need to understand that we need to rework the way we have meetings. And long agendas and sending out minutes, and reporting in on a bunch of things and slides and power point presentations, that's not what meetings are. Meetings are sitting down around a table and caring enough about the people we serve to have difficult conversations and to make decisions. And let me tell you, Craig, "Death by Meeting" is one of the most popular books I've written, especially, and I know that people listening to this don't all work in churches, but many of them even go to church, it's the people in churches that have the worst meetings. And they read that book and they say this has changed everything. They actually start looking forward to the days they have meetings rather than lamenting them. And when we had this conversation with the CEO of the $7 billion company, he said "we're gonna adopt this new method "of having meetings 'cause "it's gonna change our conversations." And at the end of our conversation yesterday they said this was the best discussion we've had in years. That's how meetings should be, like I'm having great conversations. My wife and I should go on a date and go that was really great. We disagreed, we talked about the most important things, we're leaving with greater clarity about how we wanna run our family, man we're tired but that was great. That's so good. We shouldn't go I survived that date. (laughing) Mm-hmm. If I could summarize kind of what I learned from your works, and it's so tough, I think I quote you all the time and don't even know it because you've influenced my language, our culture, but it seems like you're really crazy passionate just about working toward health. I think healthy organizations tend to grow and thrive, and you really, you work on all the things that contribute toward it. What would you say toward maybe a leader that's starting or someone even that's tired, what would you, what would you say would be the top one, two or three contributing forces to a healthy organization that we leaders might often overlook? Well the first thing stats with your motive. This is my new book, "The Motive" just came out. And I think I've written 12, depending on how you count them. But if I had a stack of books on a table, and a leader said what should I read first? I'd say start with that one because if you're not doing it for the right reason, you have to remind yourself why you're doing it. You are doing it in service of others, your employees, your customers, your congregation, whatever it is. That's the first thing. Now what you have to do then is demand that the other people that lead with you have that same mindset. And it starts in humility and vulnerability. Humility in that we are secondary to the mission. Whether you're seeling tires to keep people safe in their cars, whether you're helping people save money for their retirement, whether you're in a church bringing people to God, the mission is gotta be more important than you. And then the last thing is we have to create a culture, not a soft culture, but what I call a hard culture about how we work, that's in service to that mission, and that's gonna send our employees home every night more fulfilled than when they came to work. And that's gonna ultimately serve our customers, our clients, our congregation. So it starts with you, and then it starts with you being completely intolerant of other leaders who don't share that same motivation, and then creating a hard culture that is gonna make the people that work there better. If you can do those three things, good things are gonna happen. And you don't have to be super intelligent, it's not about what you know in your mind, it's about what your motivated by in your gut and your heart. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. The language you used again is being reward-centered or responsibility-centered. The way I said it, Pat, we're as of this month in 35 different locations, and occasionally there will be a leader that I'll say the leader is leading toward the leader rather than leading toward the mission, and so it's, it is a self, that's the language I've used before. But sometimes it's difficult to see that in the mirror. I found that the more influential you become, the harder it is to hear the truth, and it's always difficult to self assess your leadership. What would you say, what advice would you give to us as leaders to look for signs where we might be coming more self-centered and less mission driven, what do we look for in our own leadership? I would say if nobody's challenging you, ask yourself when the last time somebody pushed on you hard, and pushed on you in a way that made you a little uncomfortable. I would say if that hasn't happened in a long time there's a decent chance that people aren't doing that. And they're not bad people, they're not sycophants. They're looking at you going does he really want to hear this right now? And I say surround yourself with people that are willing to do that, that are willing, that iron sharpens iron. I think one of the biggest, I think there's two issues in society today and this effects cultures in companies too. It's that we think suffering is not redemptive and good for us. It's like avoid suffering at all costs. And the other one is disagreeing that iron sharpens iron. I think the world wants an easy pillow fight. And surround yourself with people that are willing to suffer for you and with you, and know that when they do that they are serving you. And reward them and value them. In my company we're 22 years old, we've just in the last year had another breakthrough. We thought we were done growing, which is ridiculous. We had another breakthrough, we had to force ourselves to be really committed to pushing each other out of our comfort zones, and everything has changed as a result of that. So that's a long answer to a short question, but I think if you're not uncomfortable and you don't think the people around you are comfortable pushing you out of your comfort zone, then probably you need to do something to make that more likely. Yes, I wanna just bring some application to that point because I think it's really, really important. So those of you listening right now, just take a moment and pause, and ask yourself when is the last time someone pushed back hard on you? I think it's Andy Stanley who says something, I wish I could get the quote just right, he says "if you don't listen to what people say, "eventually you'll be surrounded by people "who have nothing to say." And I think that's really true because essentially if you're always right, if you never receive correction, you train people they don't have the right or the permission to give you feedback. And then not only are you in incredible danger and vulnerable, your organization is consistently in danger and vulnerable. And every CEO who's gone off the tracks or every pastor that's had a scandal, probably, you're right, it's not that they didn't hire courageous enough people, it's that they never rewarded people in those micro moments for doing that. If you could get really practical with us and just let's say there's a leader out there that would say oh my gosh it's been a while since someone has argued with me, has pushed back, has confronted me, has told me I was wrong. If that's the case, chances are they've created the environment unintentionally. What would you say very practically that leader could do next, next step or two or three to invite real feedback and create a culture that gives permission for people to push back? Okay I have an exercise that we love to do with clients. And if you have no trust with the people you lead this is a difficult thing to do, but let's just say you have pretty good relationships but you think you haven't been doing it enough, and if they have a general level of trust with you, in other words it's basic, that's how, then you can do this, do this exercise, sit down with your direct reports, and don't go to somebody four levels below, 'cause asking them to do that for you is not actually realistic, but go to the people with your direct report, sit down and carve out a couple hours to do this, and say everybody at the table write down one thing about everyone else at the table other than yourself that they do, the number one thing that they do that makes this team better. And I want you to focus on not their technical skill, like you're in charge of music and you sing well, or you're the accountant and you're good at accounting. I mean what's the personal attribute that they bring to this team? Write down that positive thing. Everybody's like yay, yay, yay. Now I want you to write down the number one thing that everyone at this table other than you does that hurts this team, and I'm gonna reward whoever gives me the hardest thing. And write it down, everybody write it down. Now we're gonna start with me. What is the one thing you think I do well for the team? 'cause you gotta focus on that. If you're the kind of leader that says I just want criticism, you're probably, if you cant' take praise, that's probably a sign you can't take criticism. So let them tell you what you do well and accept that. And then go now I wanna, I'm gonna reward the person at the table who tells me the hardest thing. And here's the deal, unlike 360 feedback where people do it anonymously and then they hand it in to somebody and they give it, people are actually more capable, if there's some basic level of trust of looking someone in the eye and saying Craig, during meetings I think you talk too much, or hey, you know something, one of the things you do, you get this, like I get a look on my face, my wife has told me this for years, I never really believed it, but the people in my office say you get the face. And the face, inside me the face is I'm a little frustrated 'cause I don't understand. Externally it says you are so stupid and I wanna climb down your throat. And they can say you got the face right now, and I'm like oh my gosh, okay let's, I have to hear that. And I have to reward them for telling me that. And I have to tell you this, the people that challenge me in my office have never felt, they're the ones I thank for doing it. And I've learned to reward them. But for a while when I wasn't doing it it wasn't happening. So that's the exercise. Now go around and do it with everybody else at the table. I have never seen teams congeal more and feel better about themselves than when they floodied each other with something positive and then told them the thing they needed to improve on. The love that comes from the improvement is actually even more powerful than what comes from the positive. And so that's an exercise. It takes two hours, it's free, and it is a game changer as long as there's a basic level of trust. See I love that exercise so much because you're creating an environment where everybody gets to contribute, everybody gets to receive, and that means everybody gets better. And so the end of that kind of meeting people can get better. And I think what's so powerful about what you said, a few things, one is that you as the leader you go first, so you're modeling it. And then if you, if you do listen, and if you apply what they say, and then you do thank them for it, that will resonate through the whole organization. And you know I've, in 20 years, 22 years of doing this, I've only had one leader punish people, and it was a, it wasn't really a team, there was like 30 people around the room, he had a huge ego and they shouldn't have done it. I actually didn't see it myself, one of our consultants did it. I have never witnessed a leader, because one, everybody just told them Craig, you're awesome at this, and they're like wow that's great to hear. But here's the thing, they're like you know something this is true, my wife tells me this, I know it's true. And they're telling them out of love. And it's a crazy thing. You know, Craig, you know what's true in my office right now? And somebody who visited, not your guys here that help with the podcast, but somebody else did, or was it you guys, did you guys see the notes? It was your guys. There's note on every one of our desks at work, we went through this recently, and there's a piece of paper taped to everybody's desk that says be less defensive and less cynical. Mine is be less emotional and calmer. And you walk around our office, and anybody who visits can look and go so you're kind of cynical sometimes? Yeah, I'm trying not to be. So we just pasted the things we need to improve on right to the front of our desks. That's awesome. And I literally walked in the office today and I said "hey Lynne, I've noticed you've "not been cynical or grumpy lately, "you're doing a really good job on your thing." This is not rocket science, but if I don't do it first, you're right, nobody else is gonna do it. Right, and that's why it's so important for the whole organization. I would recommend to our leadership community to do exactly what Pat said, that exercise, or something that consistently trains people to give and to receive feedback. We have something we stumbled upon in the early years, literally 23 and a half years ago when I started we didn't really have a staff, and so we had business leaders that were joining a pastoral staff. They didn't know how to call for an offering, do a wedding, do a funeral and such. And so we did exercises where they would actually do it in front of me, then I'd give them feedback. And I didn't realizes how powerful that was because they got to see how to give feedback, they got to give feedback, then they started doing that with me. That evolved to now 24 years into it, most of our church locations we do, we call them stage drills where the whole team will get up for an hour a week and there might be a 23-year-old that's an intern that casts vision for something that's coming up, and then they give them feedback. And what that does is it trains the whole organization that we get better when we're honest with each other, when we receive feedback, and then there's like a celebration because it's kind of like a team where we just had a good practice, we learned how to run this play better, we all got better from it, and that little, that little one hour a week I believe takes the other 39 or 49 or however many hours during the week, and it makes us more effective in telling the truth, hearing the truth, applying the truth because of an exercise like that. And I will challenge the people listening to this to say, every one of them will hear that and go of course that would make you better. People say why is your organization successful? A huge part of that is because people learn what they're not good at, and get encouraged and held accountable for improving. So what I would say is nobody would dispute that. And so the question is go out and do that in your organization. It's fun, it's affirming. People are going home at night and telling their husband, their wife and their friends, hey, I just got all this, I just got feedback from Craig about how I can't wait to get better at this. That's not demoralizing, that's actually invigorating. Even if it's uncomfortable. So I'm gonna build that in. I'm gonna start building that in like after our meetings I'm gonna do let's do a quick debrief, what could he have done better? What could he do well? Smart. So much of what you talk about in your writing it is tough, it's doing the hard things that bring the right results. But there's also something about having the difficult conversation that you've been putting off for three months. The word you used was invigorating. Actually it is invigorating because you know you're doing the right thing. Could you motivate me, if I'm hesitating, if I'm putting something off, if I'm not engaging, what's gonna happen if I do the right thing? Well there is something about just knowing you did that you feel like I was a, I was a good Stewart of my role. There's also something about seeing the growth of others that makes you feel like this was worth it. But I think that the, and then ask yourself when you avoid doing that, it's kind of like if you sit around all day watching TV, how do you feel at the end of that? Or like I talk to kids who go yeah I played video games today, I feel kind of crappy. When you go home at night, I hope your exhausted and you feel like it was the right kind of exhaustion. Matt Mora is a friend of mine, you know Matt, he's a famous singer. Him and Chris Tomlin write songs together. Anyway, he was at concert recently and he does a little talking in between songs, and he said you know being burdened, he said make my burden light. People are like burden? Oh this is a burden? He goes you're not burdened by your job as a leader, you're burdened for the people that you're leading. So at the end of the day just go man I had the privilege of being burdened for somebody today. That actually feels good, but it's really just looking at what it means to have a burden differently. And if we think about it, it's being enforced upon us, like I got burdened because that person made me give them performance feedback, no, no, no, I took on a burden for them. The difference between that subtle approach is massive. So powerful. I think I made a mistake, Pat. I told our audience a while back that I listen to podcasts a lot of times on 1.5 speed, you're dishing out so much they're gonna have to put this on 1.0 speed just to absorb it. So don't be doing that 1.5 today man, this is too rich. (laughing) And I wanna, I'm gonna shift to kind of the lightening round here in a second, but if you don't mind, would you go back to those five things because I have a feeling they probably passed by some of our listeners, and I want our audience to hear the five things that a lot of times we skip over as leaders that maybe we're abdicating. I want them to hear them again, maybe even jot them down, and so they can apply it. And then they need to go get the book "The Motive" and dive into each of them. But can you give us those five again one more time? Having difficult conversations, that's probably the one that people can relate to. It's like oh I don't like doing that, it's not fun. And yet if I'm a leader I have to do that. I have to. If I have a person leading my choir at one of my services and they're not doing a great job, I can't justify not having that conversation. If I have a CFO working for me, and they're not on top of their game, I have to. Or they talk too much in meetings, if it's behavioral, so not having difficult conversations. The other one is not managing my direct reports, which is like do I know what my people are working on? As a leader I need to know, I need to be coaching them. I need to help them see problems early. And that's not micromanaging, that's called managing. The other one is building a team. Like actually taking the time to me, invest myself in making sure this team is functional. The other one is constantly repeating myself. Even when I'm so bored with the message I have to constantly stay on message because people need to be reinforced, and they need to be reminded constantly. And the last one is I need to run fantastic, edgy, focused meetings. And so meetings, repeating myself, managing, building a team and having difficult conversations, those are the four uncomfortable tedious things that only the leader can do. So I'm gonna have our team put those in the show notes, and if you haven't requested those you can go to life.church/leadershippodcast and request. We'll put those in the notes. And I would just encourage all of our community to go through those things and ask yourself am I engaging effectively as a leader? I mean go get a master's degree in leadership or just apply those five things. And those are super, super helpful. By the way, Craig, I will say one thing about the book to encourage people. It's the shortest book I've ever written, and everybody says the fiction is actually more, like they're on the edge of their seat, and there's plot changes and surprises and so I gave it, I named one of the characters after one of my son in college's friends 'cause I'm like I have 12 books, I'm running out of character names. So Shay, my son's roommate, I named one of the characters, and I gave him the advanced copy of it. And he came to the house one day and he goes "hey, I thought I was gonna hate that book, "that was really good. " I was surprised." So it's actually supposed to be a good read. It's hard for me to say that 'cause it's like one of my children and I'm so close to it. But people say it's short and it's a great read, so hopefully people will like it in addition to it being helpful. They will. If you all haven't read a Patrick Lencioni book, a lot of them are like business fiction. They are short. You read kind of a story that hooks you, and then there's kind of a gut wrenching application that sneaks up on you at the end that you recognize you need to apply to your leadership. So it's called "The Motive," you will want to get it. Let's do something lightening round questions just for fun. Pat, the favorite book that you've written, if someone's gonna read one Patrick Lencioni book, what do you recommend? Ooh, that's such a hard one. My dad, who's passed away, God rest his soul, said that my second book, which is not one of the best sellers, but really formed the basis of my practice, it's called "The Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive," that's, I wrote a book called "Getting Naked," which I really love. And getting naked is about how I consult and how we work with people, and it's about real, it's not neced by the way, my friends from the South told me that's a different application. It's neked where I come from. Yeah, okay. But "Getting Naked" is about an approach to working with people to help them with clients and in service that's completely selfless and counter cultural. So getting naked, whether you have a business and you work with clients, whether you're a consultant or whether you're just trying to help people get better. It's a counter cultural approach to building really loyalty trust, loyal and trusting relationships with people. Both those are great books. I think "Four Obsessions" was probably the first one that I read. And I'm pretty sure I've read all 12 or 13 of them. And so thankful for them. How about this, what's your favorite book that you've read that someone wrote in the last year or so that impacted you? You know there's a book that a guy wrote called "Be Healed." And his name is Bob Schuchts. And if I tried to spell it, it's like S-h-o-u-t-s or z. But it's called "Be Healed," and it's about the, he categorizes, and it's a faith-based book, but it's about psychology, about how we get wounded when we're young and how we don't even know it, and then we live out of a lie based on that wound, and it's changed my life. My wife and I have gone through it together. It's powerful. "Be Healed," so that's probably my favorite one. We'll have our team link to that in the show notes as well. Can you tell us something you changed in your personal leadership style over the past couple of yearS? Yeah, you know, I for years thought it was humble to understate things that you believed in, like oh I don't wanna, and I've kind of realized if you believe something is good you should shout it from the rooftops. And that's not a violation of humility, it's actually, because you're not trying to say so I've been really bad about promoting some things that I think people would benefit from because I had this view like oh I want people to see me as being humble. And it was really a violation of humility that's it's own kind of form of pride. And so I've only recently said, you know something, we have stuff that people can use, let's tell them about it, 'cause I don't take credit for it. I don't think it's mine. But I'm depriving people of improving in their lives. And like you're doing this great podcast, and I'm glad I get to share this with people, but I've been way too hesitant to encourage people to do things because I thought that I wanted to appear humble. And that's actually not humble at all. So that sounds weird, but I think it's-- It's a good word. Patrick, what's something that you're most proud that you've accomplished in the last year or so? You know I'd have to say that we started a podcast six months ago called At the Table with Patrick Lencioni. And it's been, I'm shocked, I was like, I just started listening to podcasts myself like eight months ago. And my kids were like you should do a podcast, dad. I'm like podcast, that's for, who listens to those? Now I listen to them all the time, I don't think I've turned on the radio in eight months. And this podcast that me and this guy Cody Thompson, who works with me do, is so much fun to do, and people are using it well, and so I think I'm most proud of that. Excellent. We'll link to your podcast as well, and I know that'll add value to people. Couple of quick extra ones. Your biggest leadership pet peeve, what drives you crazy and makes you show the face? Oh, okay so as a leader, I think it's when, when I, for years I was the only source of conflict in my organization 'cause I'm Italian and Irish and an ENFP. And a feeler. And so I used to have to always be the stirrer of conflict. And so when people don't speak up and don't challenge one another, and then I have to be the one to do it, I really hate that. And so, and it was my fault for not demanding that others do it. And so that's probably my pet peeve. When the clients complain about meetings that's a pet peeve of mine too. I'm like oh my gosh, that's your job. 20 years ago you never thought such and such would be so difficult, what would you, how would you fill in the blank? 20 years ago my wife and I were one year into parenthood, we had our twins, now we have two other boys as well. We have four. I never knew it would be so hard, specifically watching them and allowing them to suffer. Oh my gosh. I think being a parent is the best thing you could do, but probably it's good that we don't know. You know it's women before they give birth, this is gonna be terrible, and then afterward the baby's so cute and they forget and they do it again and again and again, which is awesome. I did not know I would have to suffer so much in watching my children suffer. So 20 years ago I didn't see that coming. It's necessary, it's all good, but man, you know what I'm talking about. I certainly do. I feel your pain right now. Final question, 20 years ago you had no idea this would be so much fun, what are you loving? You know something, I've been married for 27 years, half of my 54 years, and I enjoy being with my wife more than I ever have. I always thought marriage was gonna be good, I never knew it could keep getting better, and that in my 27th year that I would love her this much, and enjoy her this much. So marriage is better than I could have ever imagined. I wanna thank you just for your, both for your leadership contribution over the decades and then also just for who you are as a person. Some people you get closer to them and you kind of wish you hadn't. And others you get closer to them and you realize they get better and better as you get closer, and you're one of the latter. The more I've grown to know you as a friend in the last decade or so the more just impressed I've been by your growth, your impact, the way you truly care about people, and it shows. So I just wanna tell you personally thank you for who you are. Thanks, Craig, right back to you. And I, sometimes I wish God would put more of my favorite people in the world closer to where I live, but then again I probably would, my wife would be mad at me for being gone all the time. (laughing) So it's great to reconnect with you, and I appreciate those comments a lot. Well thank you. The book is called "The Motive," it's out now, and I promise you you'll wanna read this book, and then if you haven't read Patrick's other books you'll get hooked really quickly. Pat, thanks big time. Congratulations on your new book. So remember if you're new with us, we drop a new Leadership Podcast on the first Thursday of every month. If you want the leader guide, go to life.church/leadershippodcast. Please, don't forget to write a review or to rate this content wherever you consume it. Hit subscribe so we can send it to you all the time. If you do post on social media, thank you for saying that, it means the world to me. I see it a lot of times. And if you tag me or tag Pat, we might see it and maybe we can repost it to help get others engaged in this kind of content. Remember, be yourself. Don't put so much pressure on yourself. You have what it takes as a leader. We say it every time, we'll say it again. Be yourself. People would rather follow a leader who's always real than one who's always right. Thank you for joining us at the Craig Groeschel Leadership Podcast. If you wanna go even deeper into this episode and get the leadership guide or show notes you can go to life.church/leadershippodcast. You can also sign up to have that information delivered straight to your inbox every month. In the meantime you can subscribe to this podcast, rate and review it on iTunes, and share it with your friends on social media. Once again, thank you for joining us at the Craig Groeschel Leadership Podcast.
